RISON - After pulling off an upset in overtime against thirdseeded Drew Central in the 8-3A District Tournament quarterfinals last Thursday, the Rison Wildcats are scheduled to meet the Prescott Curly Wolves in the first round of the Class 3A Region 4 Tournament 5:30 p.m. tonday (Wedneday, Feb. 26) at Centerpoint High School near Amity.Prescott (16-6) comes in as the no. 1 seed from the 7-3A conference while Rison (8-11) comes in as the no. 4 seed from the 8-3A conference. Should the Wildcats win, they would earn them a berth to the Class 3A State Tournament set to begin next week at Harrison.Rison earned a regional tournament berth after having a surprising run in the 8-3A District Tournament held last week at McGehee.After finishing sixth in the final regular season standings, the 'Cats knocked off seventhseeded Lake Village, 67-62, in the opening round of the 8-3A tournament last Monday to advance to the quarterfinal round against the third-seeded Drew Central Pirates. The game was delayed to Thursday due to winter weather.Drew Central finished in a three-way tie with Helena and Dumas for the regular season championship but ended up with the no. 3 seed due to the tiebreaker system.And it looked as though the Pirates were on their way to the semifinals after they came back from a 19-15 deficit at the end of the first quarter to lead 29-23 at halftime and stretching it to a 35-45 cushion going into the final period.But the Wildcats managed to rally as Chandler Reeves scored eight points and Christian Reeves had six to pull Rison even, 60-60, to send it in over-time.In the extra period, Rison Coach Kyle Thaxton said T.J. Marks came up big for the Wildcats knocking down a 3-pointer and adding another basket to help give Rison a 3-point lead with about 8 seconds left. "DC had no timeouts left so my instruction were simply to let them score a layup and don't touch the ball," Thaxton said. "We did that and time ran out...
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